HAVANA ROOTS

If you were to pick up Alberto Cuello, the manager of Rumba restaurant at Club Vista Mare, by the scruff of his neck, he explains that he wouldn’t yelp. “That’s because I’m pure breed Cuban,” he laughs.

It’s one of many Cuban phrases and traditions that Cuello reveals during our entertaining conversation at his colourful new restaurant.

A blue neon sign reads: Si cocinas como caminas me como hasta la raspita. “It’s a common phrase in Cuba,” smiles Cuello, 42. “If someone sees a beautiful lady walking down the street, they say, ‘If you cook like you walk, then I want to eat the food that sticks to the bottom of your pan.’”

The interiors are riotous with murals by Colombian artist Jose Quizeno, an ex dancer who also designed the shirts worn by service staff. “I wanted it to look like a Cuban home in old Havana,” explains Cuello, who looks like Andre Agassi. 

“It’s a casual atmosphere, authentic, full of yellow and blue colour that is very common in Cuba, mix and match, everything is different, Colonial style.” He adds, “It’s noisy in here, sometimes people ask for us to turn down the music and we say no, take it or leave it.”

Live music adds more atmosphere, as does the cigar bar, overseen by a female cigar sommelier from Cuba. Cuello’s favourite is the Montecristo #2. Above the ceviche bar hangs a replica of a fishing boat that belonged to Ernest Hemingway who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea in Cuba. 

You come here and eat home food, our plates are full of colours. People say, everything is fried. Well, sorry, I cannot give you a Mediterranean diet, this is Cuban food.

In the back of a restaurant is a mill, through which bartenders put sticks of sugar cane every morning to extract the juice that’s put into the mojitos. The menu is Latin American but contains authentic Cuban dishes, says Cuello, including the best-seller Ropa Vieja (old clothes), a slow-cooked dish of shredded beef brisket that looks like rags. Congri rice is another important dish from Cuba. “When families get together in Cuba, the congri rice is usually made by grandmothers and everyone fights over who makes it,” says Cuello.

“They say, ‘Yours is too oily, yours is too sticky.’ Cuban food is all about the amount of flavour on one plate. Many things, many flavours, but it all goes together, I don’t know how! Whoever invented it is a genius.”

Cuello continues, “You come here and eat home food, our plates are full of colours. People say, everything is fried. Well, sorry, I cannot give you a Mediterranean diet, this is Cuban food.” Cuello is bursting with pride at Rumba and has a rapport with his staff, most of whom are from Latin America.